In many remote and rural areas, sources of potable water are not readily available. Consequently camping, exploratory and other parties penetrating these areas are usually required to bring in much, if not all, of the water needed for drinking, cooking, washing and sanitary applications. Similarly, with motor homes, small yachts and other small and medium sized passenger carrying boats, it is usually necessary to pack drinking water as part of their working supplies whenever they are away from a serviced source of water.
To meet these needs, a number of prior art systems have been developed. For example, Culver, in U.S. Pat. No. 2,786,211, discloses an easily installed self-serving sink for use in providing domestic running water to rural homes which are both connected to an electric utility line and have an available source of potable water, such as a well or a nearby stream. The sink is designed to be easily installed and serviced with a minimum of special tooling involved.
Widely used in many of these applications are a number of automatic water pressure systems produced by PAR. These generally comprise an in-line electric pump adapted to draw water from an onboard water supply tank and direct it either to a hot water heating and storage tank or to pressurize the system for direct flows of both hot and cold water to one or more of a series of water outlets for washing or drinking. However, while the pump is a self-priming and can safely be run dry, the hot water system is typically not protected against low water pressure and could suffer serious damage in the event that either the water supply tank or storage tank runs dry. Neither are these systems adapted to allow long term storage of the water without having problems caused by algae and other growths in the system.
Even a cursory review of the prior art reveals many other captive systems for supplying potable water in marine environments or other remote areas. Such a review shows that all of them are basically similar in their mode of operation and, accordingly, exhibit the same features, in one form or another. For example, almost all of these systems rely on a preexisting self-stored source of potable water and they operate on a once-through basis, i.e., they do not include any means to recirculate and reaerate the residual water stored therein. As a result should these systems be inoperative for long periods of time, such as over the winter, it is necessary to drain them completely to prevent algae and bacterial contamination from forming and accumulating in the stagnant water.